Lines
by RoseUK
Summary: It takes me bloomin' ages to finish most things, hence the somewhat out-of-date episode basis of Il Tavolo Bianco. I also have no plot ideas, so I suppose this is just kind of an introspective. Any 'edge' or 'angst' in it is probably long lost, now that we know what happens. Ah well. ;) Thank you for reading.


_**I started this after Il Tavolo Bianco. In the absence of any inspiration for an actual story, with an actual plot (!), I've just gone over old ground. I have the horrible feeling that I might have stolen the last two lines from somewhere, but I really don't know from where. Perhaps it's my imagination! Also, obligatory disclaimer: I don't own any The Mentalist stuff. And thank you to anyone who reads and reviews. :) (P.S. UK spelling).  
**_

Lines

"_I'll just get her for you_."

Marcus is a nice guy with a good strong jaw line that speaks of strength of character; he can see why Teresa likes him. But when the image of Marcus opening the door that night crosses his mind, he wonders why he didn't expect him to be there. Really, how stupid of him. When he thinks of how much he had wanted to see her, and how little he had prepared because of it (except for his last-minute, half-baked cannoli pretext, of course), he almost can't believe it was him. He never does anything without considering all the moves, past, present _and_ future. So much for impulse.

The other man had looked at him with open brown eyes, leaving everything in them ripe for the reading: consternation, awkwardness, surprise. He is pretty sure that Marcus was able to do the same back; he's a smart man, and, besides, he himself had been knocked too off guard to muster up any passable form of pretence. If Marcus views him as a viable, dangerous rival, he doesn't show it. He doesn't try to manipulate Teresa, and he tries his best to be amiable towards her… friend. He's honourable, unlike him, or maybe it's all just manipulation in disguise.

Maybe he's too cynical.

"_You didn't come here this late to drop off cannoli._"

She says this with a quirky lift to her eyebrow; a frowningly quizzical, slightly helpless, get-to-the-point face that he has come to know so well. He had looked at her and known, again, that he loves her completely, in a way he hasn't done in a very, very long time, and maybe not even then. Because _then_ he was a different person, in a different time and a different place, with a different heart and a different mind. But he loves his Teresa, with her lovely name, and her fine eyes, and her beautiful heart. She is the only person to have confused him, clouded him, conquered him. She is his match; the only person over whom he has ever lost control of his heart and actions. (And that includes Red John, though he shudders to even think about that snivelling sadist in the same train.)

For the longest time, he thought he had been in control of their relationship, even though she steadied him and guided him and tried to steer him in directions that he knew had kept him afloat. He had used all his tactics on her throughout those years: words and looks, deceptions and half-truths and omissions. He had even used truth - staining its purity, twisting it in tenderness to suit his own purposes - when he left her on the cliff top that night. But Teresa deals in truth and candour; her tools are not tools; they are merely extensions of her core self, and they are honesty and plain-speaking. Her moral force is such that she demands, requires, no, _exacts_ the truth from people; there is no other way to reach her. And now, here, now, she has disarmed him completely. For the first time in such a long, long time, he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't even know what to say. For a man gifted with the power of linguistic manipulation, this is a dizzying and rather novel sensation. He has been forced to engage her on her own home ground – standing right there, _right there_, on the threshold of _something_ – and the only thing he had to do, for once, was take the truth in his hands and hold it out to her.

"_Look,_ _I… I've been thinking about you leaving."_

It's such a hard thing, to give so freely of oneself, the way that Marcus seems to do with such facility. Still, the words began to spill out, haltingly, from somewhere not often visited, not out loud, at least, and that place was called truth. Truth of a spontaneous kind: the kind that usually makes a person vulnerable.

"_And_ _I want you to know that I… I really want you to be happy."_

He had looked into her confused, hopeful, sad eyes and felt the weight of doubt choking his words. She is his very best friend; he loves her and misses her and needs her. She has been beside him all these years, and he never even consciously realised how integral she was to his existence until quite recently, on the island, after everything had happened, when he was able to look at himself properly. And not long later brought into sharp, painful focus the moment Marcus came along. And now there is doubt in his mind, about telling her his truth. Doubt: the one thing that a conman must never entertain, not for a second, not for a single moment, if he wants his cons to work. Because doubt leads to fear and fear leads to hesitancy and hesitancy leads to cowardice. And his feelings are such a part of him, such a deeply-hidden, closely-guarded, fiercely-protected part of himself that he doesn't know how to give them up. After all, Patrick Jane – the showman, the liar, the master of the mask - never gives anything away.

"_And that is the most important thing to me - that you do what makes you happy_."

It's not the whole truth.

But it _is_ the truth.


End file.
